Which Household Pet Exposure During Pregnancy is Associated With Type 1 Diabetes?

Swedish researchers noted that the “autoimmune process later leading to Type 1 diabetes (T1D) seems to start very early in life,” they wrote in their study abstract. Researchers think viruses may be one of the triggers for type 1 diabetes development. In some cases, viruses may be hosted by animals and passed on to humans.

For this study, the researchers investigated to see if exposure to pets during pregnancy was related to the development of type 1 diabetes. Their prospective population-based cohort study was named All Babies in Southeast Sweden (ABIS). It consisted of children born in southeast Sweden between October 1st of 1997 and October 1st of 1999. They had parents of 16,384 children fill out a questionnaire within three days after the birth of their child. One of the things the questionnaire sought to collect was information about exposure to various types of common pets.

“The ABIS registry has been connected to the National Registry of diagnosis and also the national Registry of Drug prescriptions, so we know that 137 children have got T1D, and they were compared with the non‐diabetic population,” write the study authors.

Which Household Pets Were Associated With a Higher Likelihood of Type 1 Diabetes?

Photo credit: Ricky Kharawala (Unsplash)

Of all the women studied, 45.5% of the mothers had pets in the home during their pregnancy. These pets were mostly cats (25%), and dogs (18.7%). Neither dogs or cats were tied to later risk for type 1 diabetes.

“However, exposure to hamsters increased the T1D risk,” write the study authors. They add that in a multiple regression, this association remained when they adjusted for other factors.

They concluded that “Exposure to hamster during pregnancy seems to increase the risk of T1D in the child. One possibility could be infection by virus hosted by the pet.”

Sysy Morales is a staff writer and editor at Diabetes Daily and has lived with type 1 diabetes for 24 years. She has led dozens of diabetes education and motivational programs across the country and is a graduate of The Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Sysy started blogging about diabetes at The Girls Guide to Diabetes after the birth of her twins to share how she maintained recommended A1C levels during that time. What she has learned about diabetes dramatically improved her life and she is now obsessed with sharing information that may help other people with diabetes thrive, too.